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Cindy McCombe tells the story of how Matthew Walzer, a 17-year-old with cerebral palsy,used social media and key influencers to make his message go viral, and how Nike responded by making custom shoes for him.

Matthew Walzer, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is one of a handful of people in the world walking around in a pair of custom-made Nike shoes. Although he is not a professional athlete, Walzer demonstrated aprofessional understanding of social technology that led him to trigger the actions of a shoe manufacturer. After two years of writing the letter in his head, Walzer requested Nike CEO Mark Parker to make custom shoes for him.

What happened to him began with a draft of a letter on his iPhone and posting it to Instagram; and ended with a custom-made pair of shoes with his name on them. Walzer called this the perfect accident.

Walzer, born two months premature and diagnosed with cerebral palsy, has spent much of his life following sports and dreaming about becoming a sportswriter. As a child and up until just recently, he had never put on his own shoes due to his limited mobility in one of his hands. He uses a variety of aides – forearm crutches, and a wheelchair to get around. His active life includes regular workouts in the gym and walks around his house.

He tried several times to write a letter to Nike’s Parker, but always made it about halfway down a computer screen before drawing a blank. “I wanted to make it readable and to outline my feelings correctly. I didn’t want it to be just another email that was thrown in the trash,” he recalled.

But the words came to him easily on August 4 after an embarrassing episode on a recent trip. During a trip to visit some friends, Walzer was unable to put on his own shoes after a day of swimming. His friends had to help him put them on. He remembers thinking, “It sucks that I can’t do this myself. Although it was nice of my friends, everyone was staring. I was making a spectacle of myself and I felt really embarrassed.”

That incident along with a conversation with his mother, prompted Walzer to write an open letter to Parker using “Notes” on his iPhone - then saving the screenshots to Instagram. It was the spark he needed to take action.

When Walzer woke up, his friends were already commenting on his Instagram notes.

Feeling supported, Walzer refined the letter and posted it on . He also released the whole letter, line by line, on Twitter using a hashtag that would eventually trend – “#nikeletter.” He also put the letter on his blog, Against All Odds. Walzer emailed the letter to Nike with the subject line of “I Can’t Tie My Shoes.” He sent it to Parker and Tinker Hatfield, a designer of the majority of the Air Jordan line and vice president of design and special products.

Nice Kicks, a website covering shoe news, released a small story about Walzer’s letter on the morning of August 7. It received some attention. Later however, on August 8 Matt Halfhill, Nice Kicks’ Founder and CEO posted a follow up video on YouTube.

Seeing that #nikeletter was already trending, Halfhill wanted to take things a step further and prodded his network into action. “RT, like, and share this video and we will send a postcard to Nike addressed to the CEO to read Matthew Walzer's letter signed with your name,” Halfhill wrote.

The response was enormous. Halfhill’s social campaign to get Nike’s attention worked. It worked so well that Halfhill delivered a truckload of #nikeletter postcards directly to Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

When Walzer woke up and read what Halfhill had done, he was overwhelmed: “I was shocked. I was shaking. I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.”

A few days later on August 10, Heidi Burgett, director of Corporate Communications at Nike, attempted to phone Walzer at 9:30 a.m. She messaged him saying “Mathew, we saw your letter. What is your phone number?” Walzer gave her his phone number and spent the rest of the day waiting for a phone call. He was so nervous that he decided to go for a swim. At one point, his mother checked his phone and saw he had a missed message. She listened to the message and said, “Matt, Nike called!” Walzer said his jaw hit the floor and everyone was staring at him. He jokes about people believing it was just the customer service department calling him. But when Nike finally did reach Walzer, he was blown away by who was on the other end of the call.

John Poynor, associate developer for Jordan Footwear at Nike, called to say that Nike was going to make him a custom pair of shoes. You see, Poynor, like Walzer, also has cerebral palsy. The two spoke for a half hour about their history navigating their disabilities. They had many similarities – they both had similar surgeries and they both shared a love for sports.

During their conversation, Poynor revealed that Tobie Hatfield, Tinker Hatfield’s brother and the director of the “Innovation Kitchen,” would be contacting him after the Olympics.

Walzer learned a bit about Nike’s involvement with the special needs market during that call. Nike previously had made one pair of shoes for an 11-year-old disabled child in Oregon. As with many people with special needs, this child needed a shoe to fit over braces. Walzer’s needs were different – and Nike was prepared to respond. He was looking for high-top shoes that would give him ankle support. In order to put the shoes on himself, Walzer wanted to have a modified enclosure system so he wouldn’t have to tie laces.

On August 14, Hatfield called Walzer to discuss Walzer’s cerebral palsy and how it affected his feet. Walzer told Hatfield the issues he has dealt with in his life, and he felt Hatfield seemed to understand. As it turns out, this phone call was actually for requirements gathering purposes.